People look at me like I have two heads when I ask the question and I get the "we have experience will ALL kinds of kids and have many, many bright kids.
I've learned to run when I hear that line, because they might as well be wearing a big neon sign that says 'I don't get it." As others have noted, clinical judgement plays a huge part not just in interpreting results, but also in figuring out how to interpret responses and build a score in the first place. The further the kids are from the norm in one area, the more likely they seem to be off-norm in others, whether you are simply talking about divergent thinking, unusual behaviour, or an actual 2E situation. A specialist who doesn't understand what's "normal" for the population that includes your kid will struggle to assess them in an appropriate context - the "misdiagnosis" part of the Webb book mentioned above addresses this in depth. "Normal" behaviour for HG/PG may look pathological to someone who's never worked with this group.
Experience with gifted is even more important when you may have multiple exceptionalities in play. I have gone on endlessly on this forum (oops
) about how important it is not to underestimate how much a gifted kid can compensate, work around, and just plain hide disability and other kinds of challenge. They can maintain grade-appropriate, and even high achievement, for years before the demands overwhelm their compensating mechanisms. And absorb a lot of negative feedback about being lazy and not trying hard enough, if teachers can see the ability but not what's hindering it's expression. High anxiety and much damage can result from trying to keep up the pretence of normality for so long, and it's hard to re-build after the crash.
So you want someone experienced in how to strip away all those extra gifted compensating mechanisms and figure out what's left underneath - and find this
before disaster occurs. Most won't see past the ability, and will tell you you're nuts/ crazy tiger parent to even suggest something is wrong.
